At the end of the year, Iver Anderson will wind down a long and storied career as a senior metallurgist for Ames National Laboratory and as an adjunct professor for the Department of Materials Science and Engineering.
He joined the Ames National Laboratory on Oct. 19, 1987, and has been advancing in powder metallurgy and mentoring dozens of graduate students ever since.
“I have the perfect job. I get to do research that interests me, define what that is, find funding and innovate to produce new state-of-the-art results,” Anderson said.
His research has helped develop products that “weren’t possible” and improved the efficiency of several different industrial processes with significant bottom line impact.
Among his many accomplishments, Anderson and the team he led invented lead-free solder, a revolutionary tin, silver and copper alternative to the once-traditional tin and lead solder.
His advancement has transformed the electronics industry, with over 70% of electronic items in the world containing Anderson’s lead-free solder, reducing the environmental impact of lead. Not only can this solder minimize environmental impacts and lower manufacturing costs, but it can also withstand more significant stress, higher temperatures, and more extreme environments, which is vital to modern electronics.
Lead-free solder became the all-time top-earning patent for Iowa State University and Ames National Laboratory, with royalty income totaling more than $58 million before the patent expired.
Iver Anderson has had a storied career, and it all started as a kid who just liked to solve problems.
Raised in The Copper Country
“From about 10 years old, I loved coming up with clever solutions to problems,” says Anderson. “Metals especially were fascinating to me growing up.”
That isn’t a surprise, considering Anderson grew up on the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, in an area known as The Copper Country, and lived right down the street from one of the world’s deepest copper mine shafts.
Becoming an engineer was also no surprise, coming from a blacksmith—his great grandfather, a tool designer and draftsman—his grandfather, and his dad, who taught mechanical engineering at Michigan Tech University, where Anderson got his bachelor’s in 1975.
After going to grad school at the University of Wisconsin in Madison, Anderson was inspired when he interned at a powder metallurgy plant in Ohio that made many small parts that comprise internal combustion engines. He saw it as an opportunity.
“That convinced me that there is another world that not many people are paying attention to with powder metallurgy,” said Anderson. “And I thought I could do something about that.”
Anderson has advanced powder metallurgy for over three decades, and along the way, he has trained generations of Cyclone engineers.
Training generations
Throughout his years in Ames, Anderson has mentored hundreds of students through the Ames National Lab. As a father of three daughters, he views the students he teaches as one of his own extended family.
“Every time I have a grad student come through that door, I adopt them a little bit,” Anderson says with a smile. “I sometimes have them five to six years, even starting as undergrads too. You get to know people that way, and, after a few years as graduate students, when they tell me, ‘No, I think we should do it this way,’ then I know they are ready to graduate.”
He will miss the people when his time is done, his coworkers and students he has spent so much time with over the years, and he will miss the challenges, finding the solutions to issues impacting the world—ever the problem solver.